Moms On Your Parenting Advice: Enough Already

ANN ARBOR, MI — Don't hover over your children, but make sure to keep a close eye on them. Be stern when they misbehave, but don't be an authoritarian. Create clear and defined rules for your kids, but make sure you're flexible and not too rigid.

There's a seemingly endless barrage of tips and advice that parents — and especially mothers — are expected to follow, and often this guidance is contradictory.

And U.S. moms are saying this in response: Enough already; I know more about parenting than you do.

You might call the findings of this survey mom-shaming because they show:

• 62 percent of moms say they receive a lot of unhelpful advice from other people
• 56 percent saying that moms are more likely to be blamed when their child does something bad than they are to be praised when their children are good
• 42 percent say this criticism makes them second guess their own decisions

These results come from a new report from C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on children's health at the University of Michigan. The survey polled a nationally representative sample of 475 mothers with children up to 5 years old. (For more national stories, subscribe to the Across America Patch and receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

"Our findings tap into the tensions moms face when parenting advice leads to more stress than reassurance and makes them feel more criticized than supported," says Sarah Clark, poll co-director and associate research scientist at the university. "Unsolicited advice — especially from the people closest to her child — can be perceived as meaning she's not doing a good job as a mother. That can be hurtful."

Related on Patch: Please Don't Help My Kids

The people most likely to dole out this unwanted counsel are typically those closest to the mom — her own parents, her in-laws or her co-parent.

Friends, and other moms, were less likely to be the culprits of unsolicited pestering, the poll found. Around 56 percent of moms said that criticism they received made them less likely to find fault with others.

So what kind of advice is mom most likely to hear? Of those mothers who reported being shamed for their parent skills:

• 70 percent received criticism about discipline
• 52 percent received criticism about nutrition
• 46 percent received criticism about sleep
• 39 percent received criticism about breast-feeding vs. bottle-feeding
• 20 percent received criticism about safety
• 16 percent received criticism about child care

"Mothers can get overwhelmed by so many conflicting views on the 'best' way to raise a child," Clark said. "Family members should respect that mothers of young children may have more updated information about child health and safety, and 'what we used to do' may no longer be the best advice."

"Of concern are the 42% of criticized mothers who say that criticism has made them feel unsure about their parenting choices," the authors write in the report. "Sorting through the deluge of information mothers receive about parenting practices, products, and priorities can become overwhelming. Maternal anxiety, if prolonged or pronounced, is a problem for both mother and child, and for mothers struggling with anxiety, one seemingly innocent comment can become a tipping point into potentially harmful uncertainty."

Read the full report>>

Photo credit: Quinn Dombrowski